Using a Voice Recorder

[Avocado]

Can anyone help me brainstorm some possible classroom uses for a digital voice recorder? I've got one just lying around and keep thinking there must be some use for it. So far I've used it..

..to record short bits of this and that from songs, news, etc. for brief listening exercises.

..to allow private students to speak both sides of an A/B conversation.

..to make memos for myself while on "field trips" relating to vocab/grammar areas to focus on.

I'd appreciate any other ideas anyone can come up with.

TIA

[systematic]

Boomboxes/ghetto blasters used to be a ubiquitous piece of equipment in the language school classroom, especially in organisations where no custom built language lab was available.

Now largely replaced by play-only CD & DVD players, they don't usually have a slot for recordable cassettes, although boom boxes manufactured during the transitional phase from tape cassettes to CD/DVD often had both and there might still be some dual-function models beiing produced.

Nowadays, a miniature digital voice recorder or the built-in recorder software and integral microphone in your laptop will do the trick, especially if you connect it to a pair of larger external speakers.

IMHO, giving students the opportunity to hear their own voices is essential. What they believe they are saying is usually very different when compared with the original pronunciation recording of a native speaker! OK for one-to-one classes or very small groups, but rather impracticable in developing countries with up to 60 students crammed into an echoing concrete classroom.

[Avocado]

Thanks for your reply. You're right; when I first came to Thailand about 10 years ago, they had cassette recorders in the classrooms. But I haven't even seen a cassette in a good many years now.

Do you have any concrete suggestions for exercises involving students "hearing their own voice?" Perhaps a read the text aloud type exercise? Or a TOEIC give an opinion and support it exercise? And what about a follow-up, after they have listened to it?